Mission Mission

It’s like when the punks in the Youth Brigade movie thieved credit card numbers in order to make the long-distance calls necessary to book a US tour. DIY! Sunset Magazine — oi, oi, oi! Link.

Previously:

Environmentally Friendly Apartment For Sale

Streetsblog last week published a nice feature on the Mission Greenbelt Project, an effort to line the above corridor with native plants, to the benefit of wildlife and citizenry alike. Link.

Gillian says:

The election is over – come dig in the dirt!

Please join us to plant 300 plants in the middle of Guerrero Street, tomorrow (Saturday).
Enjoy the music of the Aaron Cohen Jazz trio. Sample delicious food from Boulangerie Bay Bread.
Organic juice boxes for kids. Friendly neighbors!

Even if you can’t volunteer, come take a stroll along Guerrero – where the Mission, Bernal and Noe Valley meet!

When: Saturday, November 8th, 9:30am to 2pm, rain or shine

Where: Guerrero Street, from 25th to 24th  Streets (one median)

Read: http://www.sanjoseguerrero.com/Greening/PlantingInstructions.php

Bring: Work gloves, a hand trowel and your neighbors and friends

Just a reminder: Tomorrow’s installment of the SFBC‘s month long Gas-Free Fridays initiative features an energizer station on the corner of 17th and Valencia Streets. There, cyclists can fill up on fair-trade coffee and other goodies.

Throughout October, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is sponsoring Gas-Free Fridays, an effort to maybe get us one babystep closer to being off oil once and for all. Every Friday this month, an Energizer Station will be set up at a designated corner, where cyclists can stop, congregate and load up on snacks and fair-trade coffee. This week’s corner is 12th and Market, but a future one will be in the heart of the Mission. See you on the bike bus!

Previously on Mission Mission:

We Love Heavy Metal Bike Shop

Bike Polo

The Free Farm Stand is still on the lookout for some help with its mission to bring sustainably raised produce to neighborhood families at no cost:

I picked almost the last of the kale from the Secret Garden and this time it was very popular and I had no trouble giving it away. It is still the best bang for the buck in terms of growing lots of nutrition in a small place and it is very reliable. I also had lettuce, tomatoes, and chilies from several gardens and purple beans that came from a neighbor (who also brought tomatoes and chilies). It has been hard keeping up with planting and growing a lot of vegetables, and part of that is not having enough space to grow a lot more food and part of that is needing more help, especially if I could find someone whom I can train to take on more responsibilities.

Any wannabe interns out there?

Link.

From this week’s Free Farm Stand report:

I am a big believer that gardens and trees themselves can bring healing energy to the planet and for that fact alone we need more of them. One of my crazy fantasies right now is to try to talk Delano Market into letting me plant a Peace Garden in a part of their parking lot. I live right across from it and at night a lot of stuff goes down out there, and our neighborhood besides needing some good local organic food could use some good vibe energy that gardens and nature can bring.

Link. Who can pull some strings?

Photo by romleys.

Tree at Free Farm Stand was faced with a dilemma. At an event last week promoting sustainability and stuff, he was asked to partake in a wild-boar feast. The boars were non-native pests, decimating local populations, and they were procured sustainably and respectfully, but Tree abstained nonetheless:

I just want to put this matter to rest. As much as I understand this boar eating, I personally prefer to remain a vegan and stay with my principles of doing as little harm as possible in the world. About a year or so ago I was so mad at the rats eating the avocadoes in the trees in the garden I was working in, I thought about getting night vision goggles and a bb gun and shooting them. I think I could have done it at that time. Now I am thinking that the wild boar eaters don’t have to travel out of town to go hunting. They should stay local and hunt the rats that are everywhere here (it is a delicacy in Thailand and it doesn’t come with the karma of eating pork). Then they could go for the feral cats that are everywhere pooping in our gardens and eating the birds and over reproducing.

Link. So, dear readers, what’ll it be? Ratmeat, pork karma or veganism?

Tree from the Free Farm Stand poses a revolutionary idea:

I must admit I like all the attention the free farm stand is getting, but I hope people connect with one of the ideas that I am trying to promote, which is to get away from the business model of doing things. It is about the crazy notion that there is more to life than making a living. That it can be totally wonderful to be a helpful person in the world in whatever way we can. For me one of those things is gardening and sharing my enthusiasm for growing food and flowers with others, turning others onto the idea of slowing down a bit and spending time with dirt and trees. And giving away any extra stuff, be it the too many things I collect or the extra food I grow does bring me joy.

He goes on to make a dozen or more other great points that genuinely for a second make me want to quit my job and grow beets. Link.

This poster campaign’s got us thinking, and it’s true, we are all San Franciscans. So please excuse us while we spotlight the following project even though it’s based in a neighborhood other than ours. It’s called Graze the Roof and it involves bettering the lives of low-income and homeless children in the Tenderloin, via sustainable rooftop gardening:

Graze the Roof [...] will demonstrate soil-less and container gardening methods on the rooftop at Glide, a San Francisco church and nonprofit located in the Tenderloin District. The project eliminates the use of fossil fuel consuming production and distribution methods typical of modern agricultural practices while saving energy in the building and reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Students from Glide’s Training and Employment Services Youth Build Program will construct and maintain the garden which will produce 1,440 lbs. of food in its first year. The rooftop will provide a natural sanctuary and a space to relax, inspire, educate and empower 200 homeless and low-income children between the ages of 5 and 18.

Graze the Roof on the Project Slingshot blog.

Update: Graze the Roof has nothing to do with the poster above. I just used the poster’s two messages as a segue into something not overtly related to the Mission.